Grohmann Museum facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Grohmann Museum

The outside of the Grohmann Museum in 2022
Established	2007; 18 years ago (2007)
Location	1000 N. Broadway Milwaukee, Wisconsin  United States
Type	Art museum
Collection size	2,000 works
Public transit access	MCTS 15, 18, 30, 57, and Green Line The Hop M-Line

The Grohmann Museum is a special art museum located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). Its collection is all about the history of human work. The art shows how jobs and technology have changed over hundreds of years.

The museum was created in 2001. A businessman named Eckhart Grohmann gave his personal art collection to the school. He also provided the money to create a building to show the art to the public. The museum officially opened in 2007. It is housed in a cool, renovated building that used to be a car dealership back in 1924.

The museum has over 2,000 pieces of art. This includes paintings and sculptures by famous European and American artists. Some of these artists are Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Norman Rockwell, and Frederic Remington. When you walk into the museum, be sure to look up at the ceiling and down at the floor! The amazing paintings and murals in the entrance hall were made by a modern German artist named Hans Dieter Tylle [de].

The "Man at Work" Collection

The Grohmann Museum's collection is called "Man at Work." It has more than 2,000 paintings, sculptures, and drawings from Europe and America. All of these artworks show people working in different jobs.

The collection is like a timeline of work. It shows how jobs changed as technology improved. You can see art about people working with their hands, using animals like horses, and later using power from water, steam, and electricity. The art covers over 400 years of history, from the 1600s to today.

Harvest Time (1902) by Richard Lorenz shows people working on a farm.

From Farming to Factories

Older paintings in the collection show people doing crafts by hand or farming. As you move through the museum, you'll see art from the Industrial Age. This was a time when factories and machines became common. The art shows what it was like for artists, craftspeople, and factory workers during this big change.

The collection also has modern art from the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of these pieces explore the good and bad sides of a world run by machines. For example, some paintings were ordered by factory owners to make their steel mills look like great places to work. Other artworks show the struggles of workers and call for better conditions.

Most of the art was made by German and Dutch artists. There are also works by German American painters from Wisconsin, like Carl von Marr and Richard Lorenz.

Museum Controversies

Since it opened, the museum has faced some criticism. Some people were concerned because a few artists in the collection, like Erich Mercker [de], worked with the Nazi government in Germany long ago. In 2014, the museum held a special exhibit to talk about this. They explained that while Mercker may not have been a fanatic, he likely joined the Nazi party because he was against certain modern art styles and worried about finding work.

Other criticisms include that the collection focuses mostly on European art and that the museum's founder, Eckhart Grohmann, had disagreements with labor unions.

The Carl Spitzweg Collection

The museum has a special gallery just for the German painter Carl Spitzweg. He was known for genre paintings, which are pictures of everyday life. The Grohmann Museum has the largest collection of his work in the United States.

One of his most famous paintings, The Bookworm, is on display here. It shows a man on a ladder, completely lost in a book. Another important painting is The Poor Poet (from around 1837-39). It shows a writer in a cold attic room, trying to stay warm. This was the first of three versions Spitzweg painted.

Gallery of Work

Here are some examples of the types of art you can see at the Grohmann Museum. They show different jobs and scenes from history.

Special Exhibitions

The Grohmann Museum often hosts special, temporary exhibitions. These shows focus on a specific theme, artist, or type of work. The very first one in 2007 was called Physicians, Quacks, and Alchemists. Since then, the museum has had over 50 special shows.

Here are a few examples of past exhibitions:

• American Steel: Works from the Collection of Tom and Lorie Annarella (2008)
• Foundry Work: A View of the Industry, The Photographs of Michael Schultz (2010)
• Requiem for Steam: The Railroad Photographs of David Plowden (2011)
• Bridges: The Spans of North America - Photographs by David Plowden (2013)
• The Art of the Milwaukee Road (2015)
• Masterworks from the Grohmann Museum - Celebrating 10 Years (2017)
• The Art and Mechanics of Animation (2018)
• The Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee (2019)
• artWORK by the League of Milwaukee Artists (2021)
• A Time of Toil and Triumph: Selections from the Shogren-Meyer Collection of American Art (2022)
• Gil Reid and Friends: Working on the Railroad (2024)
• On the Edge: The Labor and Environment of Dimensional Stone Quarries (2025)